LEGO has been upgrading and refining its large brick-built figures collection for at least a couple of decades. LEGO Bionicle is well known for its buildable characters, but LEGO Castle, LEGO Legends of Chima, LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Super Heroes, etc. also feature large brick-built heroes and villains.
Brick-built figures are usually larger versions of characters that normally appear in minifigure form, and they come as a separate collection of a larger theme (although they do sometimes appear in minifig-scale sets representing a larger character). They are fun to build, fun to pose, and look great on display.
Early brick-built figures were often too fragile and blocky, but in recent years, LEGO made great advances by making large figures more sturdy, playable, and refined in appearance. The introduction of better joint elements and new parts that allow complex building techniques for locking and cladding really helped in this regard.
The last significant size collection of brick-built characters was the LEGO Star wars Buildable Figures series released between 2015 and 2018. Since then, we got a few humanoid-type mechs, which usually use similar parts and techniques as brick-built figures, but are considered to belong to a separate category (they are basically robots operated by a minifigure and not a larger version of the figure itself).
Earlier this year, LEGO released the #76206 LEGO Super Heroes Iron Man Figure which demonstrates many of the more refined techniques of modern brick-built characters.
And next month, we are getting three new brick-built characters from the LEGO Marvel Super Heroes Universe. The #76225 LEGO Super Heroes Miles Morales Figure, the #76226 LEGO Super Heroes Spider-Man Figure, and the #76230 LEGO Super Heroes Venom Figure.
All three characters are roughly 9 inches tall and come with around 250 pieces. All the major joints are movable which offers dynamic and dramatic posing possibilities. The sets are going to be $24.99 each and will be available starting from September 1st at the .
What do you think? Do you like brick-built LEGO figures? Do you have any of them? Did you notice any interesting building techniques and upgrades in the more recent characters? And how do you like the sets released this year? Feel free to share your thoughts and discuss in the comment section below!
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Hmm, they appear somewhat formulaic. I guess using a single mold for the head with different prints could reduce the price, though, unlike earlier Star Wars and Superhero constraction figures.
Personally, even as a fan of Spider-Man, I probably won’t buy these sets unless I get a very good deal, though. I prefer minifig-based playsets.
I would like to see some pictures from the back. It’s always the back sides that are weak.
I have been thinking of getting Iron Man, but now I like Spidey better. I’m surprised they are 9 inches tall though. They look smaller.
I think the big heads make them more childlike, and thus it “feels” that they might be smaller. I have a couple of the SW buildable figures. The ones with the human heads are kind of creepy, but the helmeted ones are decent.
I’d rather have some Uncanny X-Men than Uncanny Valleys, myself…
Haha. No kidding! In general, I like the childlike quality of lego characters. When they want to make them too realistic (accurately tall, humanoid faces), they dip into uncanny valley territory.
The Star Wars CCBS figures generally suffered from the combination of highly detailed heads and very skeletal, formulaic and rudimentary bodies. It made them look like awkward androids or something…
these are nice and all but I prefer the ones of robots or droids
like bionicall or hero factory. Also that general grevius was awesome ! never got it though.
Despite Lego’s old preference for mechs, we are still to see a set with Peni Parker and SP//dr. It would seem like an obvious choice, I don’t know if the proportions are too specific or something.